Without Fanfare
by Taliya
Summary: Returning from a vacation-turned-case during a snowy drive home, Conan finds a destroyed car on the side of the road containing none other than a fatally injured phantom thief. Character death. Rated for mild language. Prequel to "Pomp and Circumstance".


Detective Conan and Magic Kaito characters, settings, and ideas do not belong to me but to Aoyama Gōshō.

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Warnings: Character death

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Without Fanfare

By Taliya

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The snowfall was heavy, and Mouri Kogoro was swearing quietly under his breath as he maneuvered the rental car carefully down the road. The headlights from the vehicle did little to illuminate their way forward, the flurries keeping the beams from reaching several meters past the nose of the car. "Should have left the hotel earlier," the detective grumbled, hand fisted on the wheel. They were driving down from the Tokachi Mountains in Hokkaido, the road winding and narrow and lined with trees. Despite the meager cover the foliage provided, the snow was heavy enough to bully their way through the barren branches.

Beside him, his daughter, Ran stayed silent, allowing her father to concentrate on getting them home safely. She was home from her first semester of college for the winter break and had accompanied her father on a small vacation-turned-case. She peered over her shoulder to the back row, where her charge, eight-year-old Edogawa Conan, watched from the center seat, safely buckled in. His eyes gazed out of one of the back windows, watching the dance of the barely visible snow as they blew by in the darkness, his expression thoughtful. She smiled indulgently at the boy, who she viewed and treated as a younger sibling. Ran tested the direction of the air vents above the center console, checking to ensure at least one was pointed directly towards the youth.

Conan, who was in actuality eighteen years of age, had been known as Kudou Shinichi before an incident had reduced him to his current shrunken form. A run in with agents of the Black Organization had left him in his current situation when they had believed they had killed him. With his true identity hidden, Shinichi had come to live with the Mouris as a means to find the men and the organization for which they worked.

"What the—?" Kogoro slowed the vehicle to a stop, squinting out of the windshield at something to the right of the road. Both Ran and Conan glanced in the direction of whatever it was that had caught the detective's attention, Ran gasping as she saw the outline of a car even as her father swore profusely. The hood of the vehicle was crumpled up to the cabin, a sturdy trunk standing amidst the crinkled folds of metal. A heavy dusting of snow covered the destroyed car, though the lack of snow on the destroyed hood was proof that the engine was still warm.

Conan unbuckled himself and dashed out of the car, swiftly followed by the two Mouris. They fought their way through the thick layer on the ground to the cabin of the destroyed vehicle, pressing their faces to the closer, passenger-side windows to check for the passengers.

"The driver's still there!" Ran cried, spotting the car's sole occupant when Conan shone his watch's built-in flashlight into the interior of the cabin. They rapped loudly on the windows to gain the man's attention, the trio feeling faint relief when the man inside slowly lifted his head towards the distraction. Kogoro high stepped as quickly as he could around the back of the car to the driver's side with Conan right behind him, tugging at the door handle as he instructed Ran to call for an ambulance, though they all knew with the snow as bad as it was there was a high probability they were on their own. When the door did not budge Kogoro cursed, and the child's watch light revealed the door's hinge had buckled. They would have to pry the door open.

Now swearing profusely, the detective rapped on the window, gesturing to lower the window if it was possible while he shouted at Ran to find something, anything, that could be of use to pry the door open. Conan tore his jacket off, yanking his suspenders off before hurriedly wiggling back into his coat. "Here!" he said, thrusting one end at the detective. "Attach it to the door!" Without waiting to see if the older man would follow his instructions, he hopped through the snow towards a large tree trunk, stretching the straps as he looped it around the trunk and latched the clasps of the other loop together. "Stand back!" he called to the detective before pressing the button that would retract the extended straps. After a tense few seconds in which the boy scrambled as far away from the stretched suspenders as he could, the door was violently torn from the car. The motion shook the vehicle, and the sole occupant choked out a pained cry.

Kogoro darted forward, checking on the driver's condition. "Light!" he barked, and Conan plowed his way back to the car. Flashlight on, he swept the length of the man, the two males hissing when they found the man had been impaled in the left side by a sizable piece of the decorative wood paneling from the dash, his left foot caught in the crushed foot space. A dribble of blood leaked from the corner of bluish lips, and somewhere under his messy hair more blood leaked down his temple. His nose was bruised and maybe broken, likely due to impact with the now deflated airbag. His skin was cool to the touch, and his eyes hazily tracked the actions of his rescuers.

"We need to get him out of there," Kogoro muttered as Ran shuffled to their side.

Ran stifled a scream, eyes glued onto the man's face. "Shi-Shinichi?" she asked tentatively, but there was no flicker of recognition in those eyes at the name.

He did, however lift his head up and blink, brow furrowing when he breathed, "Aoko?"

Conan watched the hope shatter in his childhood friend's eyes and felt his own heart bleed in sympathy and guilt.

Between the three of them, they were able to unbuckle and maneuver the man out of the cabin, though not without significant pain on his part. The driver could not hold back a scream as they eased his broken foot from the between the upper panel and the clutch. Once he was free of the wrecked car, they carefully slid him into the back seat, the detective shredding one of his dress shirts to wrap the man's damaged foot. They propped his feet on the sill of the window of the door using a spare jacket for insulation from the cold, Conan sitting curled on the other end of the bench to cushion his head with his back against the opposite door, the man's shoulders resting on his knees. They piled as many layers of clothing as they had brought for the trip, as the man was clearly in shock and hypothermic, though they were careful to lay the clothes around the length of wood that protruded from his abdomen. None of them wanted to take it out for fear that he would bleed to death—the large piece of shrapnel had surely punctured his intestines and possibly his pancreas and kidney. Kogoro carefully continued to drive, spitting curses while Ran cranked up the heater before she consulted a map for the nearest hospital or clinic once they reached the closest town of Kamifurano, tossing directions to her father.

In the back seat, Conan gently dabbed the man's sweating forehead, which was partially covered by more makeshift bandaging. The man constantly shivered, his teeth rattling quietly as his breath hissed through his teeth. The boy stared at the man's waxen face, and now that he had a chance to really look, the man's appearance shocked him. The man looked greatly like him had he been his true age—the similarity was uncanny. But besides being disconcerted, Conan was more concerned than anything.

"KID?" he breathed as loud as he dared, heart in his throat.

Those eyes, normally so bright and full of mischief, fluttered opened to reveal unfocused indigo irises glazed over in pain. They blinked slowly, lashes falling and rising again in slow succession as KID tried to focus on the upside-down face of his favorite critic. A pained grin stretched his bluish lips and he managed a quiet, "T-T-T-T-Tantei-k-k-k-k-k-kun…" through chattering teeth.

"Hush," Conan murmured, running a hand gently through the thief's unruly hair, "save your strength. We're going to get you to a hospital." He was worried, so unbearably worried for the thief in his lap, feeling dread curl like a leaden cat in his gut. He had seen too many injuries from near-murders to know that KID was dying.

KID coughed, the sound wet and thick, and the child detective feared that some small bit of shrapnel had punctured a lung even as he felt sick to his stomach listening. "N-N-Never thought I'd d-d-d-die this w-way…" he joked with gallows humor. "Always th-th-thought I'd be sh-shot." _At a heist, with a jewel in my hand and the wind at my back._

"Stop that," Conan snapped quietly, highly alarmed at KID's behavior. "You're not going to die!" he hissed fiercely. _I've saved criminals worse than you, and I'll save you too, goddamnit!_

The phantom thief chuckled weakly. "D-D-Didn't t-t-t-t-take you for an opti-m-m-mist, T-T-Tantei-k-k-kun. A-A-Always thought you w-were a r-r-r-realist through and th-th-through." _I'm thankful that of all the people to find me, it would be you._

"I _am_ being realistic," the shrunken detective retorted stubbornly. "We're getting you to a hospital, where you _will_ recover, and then I _will_ chase your stupid hide at your next heist, you hear me?" he hissed, fear making his words more sharp than he had intended. _You still have a job to finish, don't you?_

The thief's eyes drifted shut. "I l-l-look forward t-t-to it, T-T-Tantei-k-k-kun…"

Conan's nickname wafted on an exhale, and the boy felt panic swell in his chest. "O-Oi!" he barked shrilly, patting KID's cheeks. "Wake up! Stay with me!" _Don't leave me, not yet!_

"What's happened?" asked Ran urgently, twisting in her seat to gaze worriedly into the back row.

"Keep him awake!" the older detective ordered, determinedly keeping his eyes on the road. "If he fades now, he might not come back! Ran! How far are we until we reach Kamifurano?"

"Five kilometers," she reported. The two of them, by now, had shed as much clothing as was decent due to the fact that the heaters were on full blast in an effort to warm up their hypothermic passenger. Conan himself was now down to his thin long sleeve base layer.

The child detective continued to bat KID's cheeks as hard as he dared without causing more injury, and the thief stirred with a long, low moan. "G-G-G-G-Gods ab-b-b-b-bove!" he cursed, face pinched in agony, and Conan breathed a silent, relieved sigh. The thief released a hissed whine of pain as the car jolted over something in the road and Kogoro swore vilely.

"You can't sleep, KID," Conan said urgently. "You _must_ stay awake." _If you leave I will lose a valuable ally and friend._

"I know," the phantom thief murmured tiredly with dull, half-lidded eyes, "but so c-c-cold… and hurts…" _So damn tired of pretending…_

"I know," the boy sighed sympathetically as he combed his fingers through the thief's hair once more, feeling utterly useless and hating himself for it. "I know…" _I do know, oh, gods do I know…_

"M-Meitantei-s-s-san," KID said, and Conan's attention sharpened on the thief, understanding that he was addressing Kudou Shinichi and not Edogawa Conan. KID grinned, an expression of a pained grimace mixed with a strange satisfaction that glinted strongly in his eyes and made the small detective's stomach bottom out in horror. He shakily reached a hand up to gently cup the child's cheek with an icy hand before it dropped away onto Conan's stomach, the man too exhausted to hold it up. "K-K-K-Kuroba K-Kaito," he finally whispered, half-lided eyes fixed on his rival's, sharp and focused in that last moment. "N-N-N-Nice to m-m-meet y-you." _Thank you for simply being there for me when no one else could. I wish we could have been friends in my civilian life._

"Oi… oi…" Conan protested quietly as the light faded and died in Kuroba Kaito's eyes. "Oi…" He pawed the man's face once more, trying to induce some sort of reaction. "Oi, wake up, wake up!" he commanded, voice rising as his terror exponentially increased alongside the franticness of his gestures.

"Almost there!" the older detective shouted, and on the horizon they could see the streetlight-lit glow of the edges of Kamifurano.

Ran had twisted around in her seat, tears in her eyes as she watched the tableau of Conan desperately trying to wake up the man who looked so much like her missing childhood friend, and she could not help but believe that the man lying before her actually _was_ Kudou Shinichi. "Shinichi…" she whispered, tears pooling in her eyes, "Shinichi…!"

"Ran!" her father barked, voice tight with stress, "Directions to the hospital! Now!"

She turned back after one long, last glance, swiped her eyes with her arm, and focused on the map.

Conan was doing his best to keep his wits about him, though he was steadily losing ground to unadulterated panic. "Wake up! Please wake up! Come on, come back!" he shouted frantically, watching the still form in his lap. KID's head lolled on his belly, eyes still half open in their terrifyingly dead stare as the car hit another bump. "You're stronger than this, KID! You're stronger than this, aren't you?" he pleaded quietly, hysteria bubbling up within him. He clamped as much of his panic down as he could, doing his best to take a step back from the situation. Breathe. _Breathe. Breathe!_

He wiggled out from under the phantom thief, trying as hard as he could not to jar his abdominal wound as he slid into the foot space behind Kogoro's seat. Dropping to his knees, he leaned forward, tilting KID's head back and pinching his nose as he pried the man's lips open. Without thinking too much into it, he latched his mouth onto the thief's, forcing air into his lungs as he watched KID's chest expand. Conan blew another lungful of air into the thief but refrained from performing the follow up thirty chest compressions. He was too small, too weak; he would not have the necessary leverage needed to apply the correct amount of force, and he had no intentions of aggravating the shrapnel injury. _You are _not_ going to die on me, KID! I won't let you!_

And so he continued artificially breathing for Kaitou KID until the car finally rolled into the emergency bay. Ran was out of the car like a shot, shouting for help as Kogoro opened the driver's side passenger door, ready to help move the man onto the gurney that was wheeled out by three nurses and a doctor. Conan was instructed to stop as they strapped an oxygen mask onto KID's face before they removed the extra layers of clothing. They transferred the thief onto the gurney, rapidly wheeling him inside as the doctor tried to take a pulse with Conan tagging along next to the wheeled bed.

"He stopped breathing just outside of town!" he informed the doctor as they passed the emergency room front desk and stopped in a curtained section of a larger room. "I've been breathing for him since then, but didn't do the chest compressions since I didn't want to damage his wound further!"

One of the nurses nearby placed a hand on his shoulder, and he glanced up at her grimly smiling face. "You did well, kiddo. Now let's get out of the way so the doctors can work." She led him out of the curtained area, and the last thing he saw was one doctor cutting away KID's clothes while another prepped the defibrillator. The beam of polished wood stood upright from his gut, and Conan was sickened and discouraged to see a distinct lack of oscillation due to any sort of breathing pattern.

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The trio sat in the waiting room, some with more anxiety than others after having filled out a thick stack of paperwork. Kogoro was of the opinion that since they had delivered the young man to the hospital, their job was done and therefore they should find a hotel to spend the night in. Ran would not have any of that; she wanted to stay and if nothing else, to confirm that Shinichi's lookalike had made it through. Conan was the most worried of the three, for he knew the man's identity, knew that man as a rival, an ally, and a friend. He had a number of questions for the thief that he had no answers for, both specific to this trip and in general.

Why had he been in Hokkaido, and particularly in the Tokachi Mountains? To stalk him? Case out a heist location? Vacation? What was he looking for, and why did he return what he stole? Who were the snipers? Why did he make his heists such public spectacles? And the most important one of all, what was his purpose, his goal?

These questions and more buzzed around in his head like a swarm of angry bees, refusing to give him any peace. Conan restlessly paced in the small waiting room, mind combing over every heist he had ever attended , every encounter he had had with the thief in painstaking detail. Nothing stood out. Nothing to give him clues he did not already have. _Come on, KID, Kaitou, Kaito—whatever name you go by—please please _please_ pull through!_

Twenty minutes after their arrival in Kamifurano Choritsu Hospital, the doctor who initially came outside with the gurney approached them. The three gave him their utmost attention, expressions falling when they took in his slumped shoulders. "I—I'm sorry, but… he didn't make it." Ran gasped, covering her mouth with both hands as her father slid an arm around her shoulders in comfort. Conan had ducked his head, face unreadable as his fists clenched at his sides. "Did any of you know who he was?"

Was. Past tense. Dead. Gone.

Conan said nothing. Could not say anything. It was Ran who replied softly, "No, we found him on the side of the road in his car, and when we found out he was still alive, we got him here as fast as we could."

The doctor sighed deeply. "Kuroba Kaito, aged eighteen, lived in Ekoda-chou in Tokyo, according to his driver's license."

"So young," the older detective said, hugging his crying daughter closer to him. "Much too young to have died."

"I'm sorry," the doctor said. "We did what we could, but we could not resuscitate him and his wounds were… complicated."

The three bowed their thanks to the doctor, who bowed back and returned to the emergency room proper. A receptionist at the emergency room desk gave them directions to a nearby hotel. They drove in silence, with Conan determinedly refusing to look at the large blood stain that soaked the center of the backseat bench. They checked into a room, and Ran was quickly shuffled into the bathroom. Kogoro collapsed onto the futon he had unrolled, covering his eyes with an arm and eventually dozing off. Conan made his way to the window, where the clouds had now cleared and revealed a moonlit, snowy scene of tranquility.

His jaw trembled as he fought not to cry. He wanted to curse, scream, rage, for how could KID have left him like this? Instead he clenched his teeth, barely taking in the peaceful view as the full moon shone brightly down on him. Angrily he jammed his hands in his pockets as he waited for Ran to finish up in the bathroom, pausing when he felt the edges of a folded square of paper that he had not had before. He pulled the folded sheet out, opening it and reading its contents with wide, disbelieving eyes, his heart clenching and twisting painfully in his chest.

_To my beloved critics and darling Task Force,_

_I suppose if you find this letter, then I am most likely permanently incapacitated, or even more likely, dead. I wish to send to you my sincerest apologies for no longer being able to entertain you as I have in the past, and I hope you have enjoyed our games as much as I thoroughly have. I am positive that I drove you all up the wall and onto the ceiling with my antics, but I assure you that I had a purpose for doing so—the actual thefts, mind you, and not the accompanying chaos. That was purely for my own enjoyment and for the pleasure of my adoring fans. My purpose for seeking and returning gems is an assuredly worthy cause; else I would not have delved into a life of thievery. The object of my search, once found, would have ended the necessity of my heists, for had I found the object of my quest it would have ensured the safety of—well, the world, I suppose._

_I am sure you have noticed the snipers that have attended my shows as of late; they too seek that which I seek, and my purpose was to keep it from their hands. If you are curious enough to chase after what I believed was worth my life, I bid you fair warning: my pursuers are not morally upstanding people. They will and have killed to keep knowledge of their existence secret, and they will kill anyone whom they suspect harbors even the faintest idea of their existence, be it friend, family, acquaintance, or passersby. If this warning fails to dissuade you, then I leave you with my last riddle along with my deepest hopes that you will succeed where I have failed:_

_Under the watchful eyes of a volley of stars and moon,  
The ravens will gather where the magpie believed  
The tears shed by Pandora when she locked Hope  
Inside its crystalline enclosure for all eternity  
Resides seen yet unseen, displayed for all to witness  
Yet only under auspicious skies will those who seek  
See its bloody, unhappy truth within its depths._

_May the Lady Luck bless you always,_

_-Kaitou KID_

His fingers clenched around the crisp white sheet, crinkling it to the point just shy of tearing it, and his hands shook hard as he tried and failed to corral his emotions. "_Damnit_, KID," he hissed quietly, forcefully relaxing his fingers enough to let go of the paper. He carefully straightened it on the window ledge before folding it back up and sliding it in his pocket. "_Goddamnit._" He leaned against the wall next to the window, sliding down to the floor, staring sightlessly ahead. It was not until Ran's gentle hands wiped away the tears that he realized he had been crying. Uncaring of how childish his behavior was, he flung himself at her, and she immediately wrapped her arms around him as he cried loud, heart wrenching sobs, mourning for a friend she never knew he had lost.

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Author's Note: This…_ sucked._ Not writing it—oh, I had plenty of motivation to write this, but—killing off Kaito royally _sucked_. However, this little plot bunny refused to leave since it's so rare Kaito dies outside of a heist, and so I grumpily/satisfactorily/resignedly present this to you all. I hope you enjoyed it.

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Completed: 28.04.2015


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